I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Psalm 32:8
This last week, I had the privilege of co-leading a three-day conference for Christian school leaders. Located in Santo Domingo, the largest city on the island, the focus was, “Esperanza Profunda” which means “deep hope.” We were presenting to school leaders from around a dozen different school sites. They are all under the umbrella of Sinergia, a Christian organization that plants schools and churches and Christian schools in the poorest neighborhoods of the D.R.
Many of these school leaders have the passion to bring the Gospel to their students, but do not have the training, tools, or resources to maximize their efforts. The leadership of Doulos was approached earlier in the year to share the strategies and tools that we use to bring the Gospel to our students and provide training for a group of school directors and leaders. Of course we said YES!! Even though myself and my coworkers have packed schedules, we felt the Holy Spirit pressing upon us the importance of this conference and the need to say “here we are, send us.”
During our training, we focused on creating a Christ-centered vision for the school, implementing biblical integration strategies for classrooms, cooperative learning strategies, short-term and long-term goal setting, focused prayer time, devotions and many more activities. These men and women were so appreciative of the opportunity to further their gospel impact for their students. With tears in their eyes, many of them passionately spoke of the hopelessness of the areas they live in, the seeds of hope that they wish to plant in their students, and the appreciation to have a vision and tools to now make that happen.
Planning 24 hours of content over 3 days took TONS of time and effort outside of my normal principal duties. But all the hours of prep, the time away from family, and the hours of speaking were an easy “yes” to be able to move the Kingdom forward and hopefully impact the hundreds of students at these schools. Thank you, Jesus, for being our “esperanza profunda” in everything we do!